I drove back to Indiana Wednesday night (yes, in our awful weather) to work on my Australia talks and get caught up with some outstanding writing. I’ve found I am super-productive in my home workspace!
On the drive back, as I often do, I got caught up on my favorite podcasts, including one I’d been meaning to listen to for a while: Merlin Mann’s “In Box Zero” Talk at Goggle from last year. I’m a fan of Mann’s take on productivity, mac use and technology. In the talk he discusses how he manages his email with some practices based on “getting Things Done” by David Allen. It’s rather fascinating how he hones in on how some of us “live in our inboxes.”
I realized while listening that I wanted to blog about this, and then yesterday I catch a tweet from Cliff Landis that he was “struggling with too many RSS feeds.” In a bit of synchronicity, Merlin Mann also discusses RSS feeds toward the end of the talk. The tips for dealing with clutter also carries to feeds and other work technologies.
His summary tips:
- Do email less.
- Schedule email dashes – once per hour.
- Use filters to control email/RSS
His blog series on “In Box Zero” is here: http://www.43folders.com/izero
Checkout the video here: http://www.43folders.com/2007/07/25/merlins-inbox-zero-talk
How do TTW readers deal with email? With “too many feeds?”
Update: Are there too many social sites?